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"The pipe under the sink was leaking again. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that Nick kept his favorite sword under the sink." Anyone who reads Brennan's blog knows that she has a wicked wit and a wonderful turn of phrase. Now she's delivering a fresh take on urban fantasy in her first novel, THE DEMON'S LEXICON. The teen years are hard on everyone, especially someone who has to keep moving. Always wondering how you fit in, having trouble with schoolwork, not getting along with your mother... For Nick, all of these things are magnified. They have to keep moving because they are on the run from the magicians who killed his father in their effort to take back what their mother stole. Nick would quite happily hand her right over - she certainly has never attempted to hide that she hates him, a feeling he returns - but his brother Alan wouldn't like it. And Alan is the one person Nick cares about, the one person for whom he will attempt yet again to fit in at school, to keep trying (and failing) at his schoolwork. But now even Alan is hiding secrets from him. He's slipping out, trying to hide letters and photos. If that weren't bad enough, he's openly putting himself in danger in order to help two of Nick's schoolmates. So what if the boy is demon-marked and doomed to die? Alan and the kid's sister might care, but Nick doesn't. Not until Alan puts his own life on the line. Brennan's humor enlivens a dark plot, first in a planned trilogy. She expertly bolts another reality onto our own, fleshing it out and filling in details so that it becomes as tantalizing as that music just out of earshot, without falling into the worldbuilding mistake of stopping the story for exposition. Although it seems as if the plot is relatively straightforward, at the conclusion there's a twist that changes everything, opening up several new directions for the second book. And yet, looking back at all the throwaway hints given, it was all so obviously inevitable, and yet still so unexpected. Fans of flippant-but-dark works along the lines of Tanya Huff, Charlene Harris, or Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer will want to make room for Sarah Rees Brennan. The book may be listed as Young Adult, but would decidedly appeal to readers of any age who enjoy fantasy.
Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, June 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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